


Shadows

by dracoglacies



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, there's mentions of other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 04:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoglacies/pseuds/dracoglacies
Summary: The story of a villager whose eyes could see shadow differently than normal person, and how it affect his life.





	Shadows

For whoever picked this up, I hope that you will hide this. What I write here might condemn you for a life of isolation after all.

Be warned, everything is a spy. Even Zashiki-Warashi, no matter what you think of them, they are not safe.

To start, from the beginning of my memories, I remember that shadows were far more static than what people said they were. My parents, my friends, everyone said that shadows stretched and moved according to the light source. But that wasn’t my experience at all.

My father’s shadow was light and small, and my mother’s was dark. As I got to know more people, I saw more shadows. The grandma that sold snacks had light shadow, but it was huge. Everyone differed, and from there, I knew how they were.

The shadow’s color revealed the secrets they hide, and the size… to be honest, I didn’t understand why some people had huge shadows while others didn’t.

I knew that the Red-White Shrine Maiden, the Girl who Ran-Away, the Head of the Hieda Family were huge and dark. I didn’t really want to know why, besides, they weren’t as interesting as those  _ other _ ones. The ones I knew as “youkais” by now.

That one girl dressed in red, with her crooked shadow and its head that didn’t seem to be connected to her body. How the school teacher had horns and a tail within hers. Once, I even went to that Myouren Temple people were talking about- and that place? Everyone’s shadow was crooked. Twisted. I left that place in a hurry, didn’t matter what my friends said, I didn’t want to be in the middle of those twisted figures.

But mostly, I kept it to myself. Silently taking note of whose shadow was crooked, to know who is what. Doing this wasn’t hard, and I was happy to keep it that way-

Until the day I saw it. How the Red-White Shrine Maiden’s shadow grown crooked, darker than I thought possible. It reminded me of how youkais’ shadow was supposed to be. Then that person… or thing? on her side... That thing might have looked like a woman, but I wouldn’t be fooled. With her jagged shadow filled with eyes, there was no reason to think that even as a youkai.

I messed up though, I was sure that those eyes looked back at me. That thing saw me, and in that very moment I knew it would come for me. That was something worse than any youkai, as evidenced with the fact the moment she appeared was when the Shrine Maiden’s shadow changed. I tried to tell others, but no one believed. And that was another of my mistake, I could see those eyes starting to appear more and more around me.

So, I leave this message in the hope that someone else might be able to do something with this informa-

[The letter cut off here, with only ink marred the rest of the page]


End file.
